The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-12.11.

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being

Part-11.

But a distinction is drawn.

Metaphysical and philosophical definitions are given in respect of these stages, into the details of which we need not enter here.

The sum and substance of the opinions of these exponents is that there are two kinds of people who reside in brahma-loka,just as there can be two kinds of people living in a country—citizens and visa holders, for instance.

Citizens of a country are of one kind, and visa holders are of a different type.

Both live in the same country, and perhaps they have all the facilities that are available in this country—they can travel in the same coach, they can eat the same food, they can breathe the same air—they are practically the same in every respect.

But their visas can expire, whereas citizens have no such problem of expiry of their tenure of stay in the country.



This distinction is drawn by exponents of this particular subject of the status of souls in brahma-loka.

Commentators on the Gita, like Madhusudan Saraswati for instance, tell us that upasakas or worshippers who perform meditation unselfishly, without any kind of desire, do not come back, though they may reach brahma-loka and pass through that stage as a necessary condition of the further attainment of utter immortality, about which we shall speak a little later.

But there are residents in brahma-loka like Sanaka, Sanatana, Santakumara, Narada, etc.—they are not visa holders.

They have not migrated from one country to another and they have not risen from one level to another.

They were there right from the time of creation itself and they have no such fear of coming back.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ....